New Safer Seas Act Amendment Defines Maritime Harassment, But Still Allows Serious Abuse to Go Unreported
January 19, 2026
By: Maritime Legal Aid
The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amends the landmark Safer Seas Act to define maritime “harassment” as discrimination, leaving pervasive shipboard bullying and psychological abuse outside the statute’s scope.
For the first time since Congress enacted the Safer Seas Act, U.S. maritime law now contains a statutory definition of “harassment” within the Act’s reporting framework. That change came through the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which amended the Safer Seas Act’s shipboard abuse reporting provision at 46 U.S.C. § 10104 by defining “harassment” through incorporation of existing federal anti-discrimination law. While the amendment resolves a long-recognized ambiguity noted by regulators and industry law firms, critics argue that it also introduces a new and consequential limitation. By defining harassment exclusively as discrimination, the statute leaves unresolved whether pervasive shipboard bullying, coercive mistreatment, and psychological abuse—harms widely documented in confined maritime environments—trigger the Act’s reporting and protection requirements.
Pursuant to the Safer Seas Act, the U.S. Coast Guard is required to submit annual reports to Congress detailing the number of reports received under 46 U.S.C. § 10104, along with investigations, enforcement actions, and outcomes related to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and harassment aboard U.S.-flagged vessels. A comparison of the Coast Guard’s first two post–Safer Seas Act reporting years illustrates why the statutory definition of harassment matters. In FY 2023, the Coast Guard received 150 total reports, including 53 harassment reports and 57 sexual harassment reports. By FY 2024—the first full fiscal year of reporting—total reports increased to 287, but that growth was driven overwhelmingly by harassment allegations, which rose to 147 reports, accounting for more than half of all reported misconduct.
As the Coast Guard acknowledged in its FY 2024 report, the term “harassment” was not defined in statute or federal regulation, leaving vessel owners and operators to rely on internal company policies or their own judgment when determining whether conduct triggered a reporting obligation under § 10104. The result was a reporting regime in which the most frequently alleged form of misconduct was also the least clearly defined.
It was against this backdrop of rising reports of shipboard harassment and definitional uncertainty that Congress moved to amend the Safer Seas Act through the 2026 NDAA. Rather than creating a standalone maritime-specific standard, Congress chose to define “harassment” in § 10104 by expressly tying it to conduct already prohibited under existing federal anti-discrimination statutes, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. In doing so, the amendment brought clarity and uniformity to one aspect of shipboard misconduct reporting, aligning the Coast Guard’s oversight framework with well-established employment-law principles. At the same time, that approach necessarily limited the scope of reportable harassment to conduct rooted in protected-class discrimination, raising questions about how the statute now treats forms of shipboard mistreatment that may be severe, coercive, or psychologically harmful but are not tied to a protected characteristic.
That gap is not theoretical. Maritime attorney Ryan Melogy, the lawyer behind the Midshipman-X case that precipitated congressional action culminating in the Safer Seas Act, contends that the amended definition of harassment fails to reflect how abuse actually manifests in a shipboard environment. Melogy, who has represented numerous mariners alleging sexual abuse, harassment, and coercive mistreatment at sea, has also publicly described his own experiences of sexual harassment, sexual assault, physical assault, and sustained psychological abuse aboard multiple commercial vessels during his career as a mariner. Drawing on both that personal experience and his legal practice, Melogy argues that the amended definition fails to reflect how abuse actually manifests in a shipboard environment.
According to Melogy, much of the mistreatment mariners report has little to do with protected characteristics and instead takes the form of hierarchical coercion, intimidation, humiliation, and sustained psychological pressure imposed by superiors in a setting where escape is impossible. In his view, the ship functions as a closed system: crew members live where they work, are dependent on supervisors for safety and livelihood, and are exposed to misconduct continuously rather than episodically.
“The dramatic impact of psychological abuse in a shipboard environment is not well understood,” Melogy has said, noting that conduct which might be dismissed as ordinary workplace conflict on shore can become cumulative, destabilizing, and even fatal at sea. By tying reportable harassment exclusively to discrimination, he argues, the amended statute leaves a significant category of shipboard abuse—conduct that is severe, coercive, and psychologically damaging, but not discriminatory—outside the Safer Seas Act’s reporting and oversight framework.
Melogy has pointed to his experience serving as a Third Mate aboard the M/V Washington Express as illustrative of that gap. Although the vessel was owned by German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd, Melogy later filed a formal union grievance against Crowley Maritime Corporation, which exercised day-to-day control over the shipboard environment, alleging severe mistreatment by the ship’s master. In that grievance, he described what he characterized as sustained psychological abuse amounting to psychological torture, carried out by a captain who exercised near-total authority over his work, safety, and living conditions at sea. “I was subjected to continuous intimidation, isolation, and coercion by the captain, with no meaningful avenue for escape or outside intervention,” Melogy wrote, describing an environment in which the ship’s confinement and rigid hierarchy amplified the harm.
Melogy’s report further describes the toll this environment took on his mental health. He reported experiencing severe psychological distress as a result of the sustained isolation, intimidation, and lack of meaningful recourse, including intrusive thoughts of self-harm. In his account, those effects were not the product of a single incident, but of prolonged exposure to an environment in which authority was unchecked and escape was impossible. Melogy’s report from his time aboard the M/V Washington Express frames these consequences as evidence of how psychological abuse in confined maritime settings can escalate beyond ordinary workplace stress and into serious threats to personal safety and well-being.
Research consistently shows that bullying, harassment, and workplace violence are significant problems in maritime settings. One structured review of the literature found that between 8% and 25% of seafarers report experiencing bullying or harassment at sea, with substantially higher rates in certain populations. A broader body of academic research has further demonstrated that prolonged exposure to isolation, rigid power hierarchies, and the absence of meaningful avenues for escape significantly increases the risk of psychological injury, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Studies focused specifically on seafarers have linked these outcomes to extended time at sea, strict command structures, and social isolation, identifying bullying and abuse as central contributing factors.
Taken together, this body of research underscores the central limitation of the 2026 amendment to the Safer Seas Act. By defining harassment exclusively through the lens of existing federal anti-discrimination law, Congress clarified an important reporting standard but left unaddressed the unique realities of shipboard life. The amendment brings legal uniformity, yet it does not account for how isolation, rigid hierarchy, and the absence of meaningful escape can magnify psychological harm even in the absence of discriminatory intent. As a result, conduct that may be profoundly destabilizing in a maritime environment can still fall outside the statute’s reporting and enforcement framework, despite posing serious risks to crew safety and mental health.
Melogy argues that this gap reflects an incomplete understanding of how abuse manifests at sea. “The Safer Seas Act was an important first step, but it did not go far enough,” he has said. “Congress addressed sexual assault and discrimination, but psychological abuse in confined shipboard environments remains largely invisible under the law.” He has indicated that he intends to continue advocating for legislative changes that would expand the definition of reportable misconduct to include coercive and psychologically abusive conduct not captured by traditional discrimination standards. Until that occurs, Melogy warns, mariners subjected to the most damaging forms of non-physical abuse may remain dependent on employer discretion rather than statutory protection—an outcome that undermines the very purpose of the Safer Seas Act.
“2026 AMENDEMENT TO SAFER SEAS ACT REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
SEC. 7315. REQUIREMENT TO REPORT SEXUAL OFFENSES.
Section 10104 of title 46, United States Code, is amended—
(1) in subsection (a)(1) by striking “harassment, sexual harassment, or sexual assault in violation of employer policy or law” and inserting “sexual harassment or sexual assault in violation of employer policy or law or harassment”; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
(h) HARASSMENT DEFINED.—In this section, the term “harassment” means—
(1)(A) unwelcome remarks about an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or other physical or physiological attribute, or other unwelcome verbal or physical conduct towards an individual based on 1 or more of those categories, as prohibited by any Federal law, including—
(i) title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq.);
(ii) the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29 U.S.C. 621 et seq.);
(iii) the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.); and
(iv) title II of the Genetic Information Nondisclosure Act (42 U.S.C. 2000ff et seq.); and
(B)(i) submission to such remarks or conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment, pay, career, benefits, or entitlements of an individual; or
(ii) submission to or rejection of such remarks or conduct by an individual is used as the basis for decisions affecting that individual’s job, pay, career, benefits, or entitlements; or
(iii) such remarks or conduct have the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance; and
(C) such remarks or conduct are so severe or pervasive that a reasonable person would perceive, and the alleged harassed individual does perceive, the environment as hostile or offensive.
(i) RESPONSE TO INCIDENTS.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to impede the ability of the responsible entity of the vessel to take immediate personnel action in response to an incident described in subsection (a)(1) to preserve the safety and security of individuals on the vessel.
(j) EDUCATION AND OUTREACH.—Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Coast Guard, after consultation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, shall—
(1) develop and disseminate informational guidance to seafarers, vessel owners and operators, employers of seafarers, and other relevant stakeholders, which shall—
(A) describe, in general terms—
(i) the purpose, functions, and powers of the Commission;
(ii) the role of the Commission in addressing employment discrimination complaints; and
(B) identify the publicly available websites and contact information for the Commission; and
(2) make available trainings or other presentations to inform seafarers of employment and anti-discrimination rights under the laws administered by the Coast Guard and the Commission.”